A review by spootilious
The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

adventurous dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

 

 

Read: July 7th, 2024
 Title: The Wild Robot 
 Author: Peter Brown 

Genre:  Middle Grade Science Fiction 

Rating: 2.5/5
 Review: 

I wanted to love this book. I really really did. But I really really didn’t. 

Honestly, I wanted to give it 2 stars, but my son absolutely adores this series and if it gets him reading I have to give it an extra half a star. 
 
 Now, obviously I am not the target audience but here are the things I enjoyed about the book: 

1.       It feels very campfire story/folksy. The entire tone of the novel draws you in. 

2.      The writing style is simplistic and age appropriate. The vocabulary is diverse and possibly challenging (in a good way) for middle school readers. 

Now, for the things I did not like: 

While the tone of this novel is light and entertaining the themes of it are not. The book is filled with themes of death and violence. Granted there are other themes like the circle of life, friendship, found family, acceptance. But also, terms like ‘corpses’ and ‘severed limbs’ were used more than once which is a bit concerning. 

Its interesting how the novel can be both lighthearted and somber but Brown manages it pretty well, I’ll give him that. Still, I found the novel to be more… disconcerting than entertaining. 

That being said, I don’t believe it’s any worse than what this age group is exposed to daily from new channels, YouTube, video games… advertisements… and address valuable lessons like empathy, responsibility, caring for others, and acceptance. 

 

Its difficult to know who I would recommend this too… I suppose I would recommend it to parents who are looking for a book to get their child into chapter books and away from graphic novels with the warning that there is quite a bit of death and some violence. 

 

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